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ESG Framework for tourism businesses
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations have become some of the most important issues facing corporations across the world today. In essence, ESG captures all material non-financial topics that usually are not being captured by standard financial reporting.
Given the direct interactions between tourism industry operators, the environment, and communities the importance of ESG in tourism cannot be overstated. In a practical sense, the importance of ESG to companies within the tourism industry can be clearly seen in areas such as customer acquisition, customer retention, managing risks and regulations, gaining access to sustainable financing or managing investor relations.
While a number of ESG reporting and disclosure initiatives already exist they have been developed relatively independently. As a result, at present ESG reporting is not done in a standardised manner across organisations, meaning the comparability and scalability of ESG reporting is limited. In this context, UN Tourism is joining efforts to develop a harmonized ESG framework that can be used as a reference by tourism businesses.